Microsoft Posts Source Code For MS-DOS and Word For Windows

March 26th, 2014, 00:16 Posted By: wraggster

"Microsoft, along with the Computer History Museum, has posted the source code for MS-DOS 1.1 and 2.0, and Word for Windows 1.1a. It's been a long time coming — DOS 2.0 was released for IBM PCs in 1983, and Word for Windows 1.1a came out in 1990. The museum, with Microsoft's consent, has made the code available for non-commercial use. They've also explained some of the history of this software's development: '[In August, 1980], IBM had already contracted with Microsoft to provide a BASIC interpreter for the PC, so they asked them to investigate also providing the operating system. Microsoft proposed licensing "86-DOS", which had been written by Tim Paterson at Seattle Computer Products (SCP) for their 8086-based computer kit because the 16-bit version of CP/M was late. When SCP signed the licensing deal [7] with Microsoft, they didn't know for sure who the computer manufacturer was. Paterson said "We all had our suspicions that it was IBM that Microsoft was dealing with, but we didn't know for sure." [1] He left SCP to work for Microsoft in 1981. "The first day on the job I walk through the door and 'Hey! It's IBM.'" Microsoft originally licensed 86-DOS in December 1980 for a flat fee of $25,000. By the next summer they recognized the importance of owning it and being able to license it to other companies making IBM-PC clones, so they purchased all rights for an additional $50,000.'"

http://tech.slashdot.org/story/14/03...rd-for-windows

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Nvidia GeForce GTX Titan Z graphics card will cost $3,000

March 26th, 2014, 00:00 Posted By: wraggster

Nvidia has announced a new graphics card it describes as 'perfect' and 'insane' - the GeForce GTX Titan Z - which also has an insane price tag of $3,000 (around £1,800).
Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang unveiled the card today at the chip maker's annual GPU Technology Conference.
Built around two Kepler GPUs and 12GB of dedicated frame buffer memory, the Titan Z is engineered for next-generation 5K and multi-monitor gaming. It has two GK110 chips and is powered by a total of 5,760 processing cores, or 2,880 cores per GPU.
Titan Z’s twin GPUs are tuned to run at the same clock speed and with dynamic power balancing, so that neither GPU creates a performance bottleneck.
"That performance is delivered in a card that is cool and quiet, rather than hot and loud. Low-profile components and ducted baseplate channels minimize turbulence and improves acoustic quality," said Nvidia in a statement.
"So if you want to build the ultimate ultra-high definition gaming rig that can harness the power of quad GPUs working in tandem, Titan Z is the perfect graphics card."
Nvidia says it continues the Titan legacy of supercomputer-inspired performance.
“If you’re in desperate need of a supercomputer that you need to fit under your desk, we have just the card for you,” Jen-Hsun said.
Earlier this year Nvidia announced the Titan Black.

http://www.pcr-online.biz/news/read/...t-3-000/033618

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Battlefield 4 'Naval Strike' delayed on PC, Battlelog updated

March 25th, 2014, 23:54 Posted By: wraggster

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Microsoft praises Valve, vows 'renewed focus' on PC games

March 25th, 2014, 03:03 Posted By: wraggster

With the dust of the Xbox One launch having settled, Microsoft corporate vice president Phil Spencer is ready to turn the company's attention toward the future of PC gaming.

During a recent roundtable discussion at GDC, Spencer was asked his thoughts on Valve Software, and more specifically, the upcoming Steam machineplatform. "[Valve has] been the backbone for PC gaming for the last decade when you think about the work that they've done," Spencer replied.

"As the Windows company I appreciate what they've done," he added. "In a lot of ways they've focused more on PC gaming than we have, and for me that's something inside the company that we'll have a renewed focus on - Windows and PC gaming inside of Microsoft is definitely happening - you saw the DX12 demos here and you will see more from us over the summer."

Spencer failed to specify when we could expect to see more from Microsoft, though he later suggested the company is preparing for a big showing at this year's E3 conference.

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Microsoft Ships Surface Pro 2 Tablets With Wrong, Slower Processor

March 25th, 2014, 02:54 Posted By: wraggster

"Microsoft launched the Surface Pro 2 tablet in October 2013 with several hardware upgrades, like the new 1.6GHz Core i5-4200U processor specifically optimized for longer battery life and increased performance. Three months later, Microsoft decided to upgrade the CPU with a 1.9GHz Core i5-4300U unit that would be capable of taking these improvements even further. Although Redmond kept quiet about the improvement, tech savvy buyers were aware of the change. Now, according to some new reports, it seems that the company is still shipping the old models to buyers, despite the fact that Microsoft promised to deliver only upgraded models featuring the new CPU."

http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/1...ower-processor

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Rollercoaster Tycoon 4 on PC will be "completely different", Atari promises

March 25th, 2014, 00:24 Posted By: wraggster

Rollercoaster Tycoon 4 publisher Atari has promised that the game's PC version will be very different to the microtransaction-funded incarnation headed to mobiles.The fourth main entry in the series was announced last week - initially just for iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch - but word of a PC version quickly followed."We can't share that much, but [PC] will definitely be a completely different game," Atari exec Anthony Chien told Digital Spy. "There's a lot of diehard RC fans that want a PC experience, they want all different sorts of things. It's trying to deliver as much as we can."First is the mobile version, then it's the PC experience. I think a lot of people are vocal about wanting to see the PC version first before the mobile, but our strategy is mobile first."The iOS version of Rollercoaster Tycoon 4 won't be a free download despite its free-to-play mechanics for speeding up build times."The game will come pre-loaded with over $5 of in-game currency, with the value of in-game currency you're getting more than what you paid for," Chien concluded.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...atari-promises

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Elder Scrolls Online early access timings

March 25th, 2014, 00:24 Posted By: wraggster

Early access to the Elder Scrolls Online live servers begins as soon as Sunday for some people. A five-day head start!If that's you, you can start at noon GMT.Three-day early access starts the following Tuesday, 1st April, again at noon GMT.Then the game launches in full for everybody on midnight Thursday night GMT.The full timings, via Reddit, are:Five-day early access

• North America (East): 7am EDT, Sunday, 30th March
• UK & Ireland: 12pm, Sunday, 30th March
• Central Europe: 1pm CEST, Sunday, 30th March
• Singapore: 7pm SGT, Sunday, 30th March
• Sydney, Australia: 10pm AEDT, Sunday, 30th March

Three-day early access

• North America (East): 7am EDT, Tuesday, 1st April
• UK & Ireland: 12pm, Tuesday, 1st April
• Central Europe: 1pm CEST, Tuesday, 1st April
• Singapore: 7pm SGT, Tuesday, 1st April
• Sydney, Australia: 10pm AEDT, March

Official release

• North America (East): 7pm EDT, Thursday, 3rd April
• UK & Ireland: 12am, Friday, 4th April
• Central Europe: 1am CEST, Friday, 4th April
• Singapore: 7am SGT, Friday, 4th April
• Sydney, Australia: 10am AEDT, Friday, 4th April

The PS4 and Xbox One release of The Elder Scrolls Online will follow in June.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...access-timings

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Heroes of the Storm: Blizzard's long road to reinventing the wheel

March 25th, 2014, 00:22 Posted By: wraggster

Despite Blizzard's bluster about avoiding the term 'MOBA' and wanting to make something different, the alpha of Heroes of the Storm still leans heavily on staples of the genre: two teams of five use the unique traits and skills of their heroes to repeatedly bash each other to death while gradually knocking down defensive structures. The complexities that bubble up in-between add the texture that makes MOBAs fascinating, but the core remains compelling and easy to understand: infinitely spawning waves of opposing AI 'creep' armies meet in the middle of the map to fight each other, but won't make any progress without help from players; destroy the defences that stop your AI guys from getting to the other side, and you've won. Peek beneath all the sorcery and blood, and you're basically playing American football.The traditional back-and-forth is still here, but it quickly proves little more than a red herring. It's something to do when you aren't busy with roaming around to recruit mercenary camps, or fighting over map objectives, sure - but focussing purely on towers and creeps is a sure-fire way to rapidly lose.Rather than embedding long-term appeal in a roster of strange and nuanced characters, Heroes of the Storm wants to keep things fruity by offering a wide variety of maps. At the heart of each map is a unique gimmick that largely dictates the flow of the match, encouraging players to drop what they're doing and focus their efforts on something else. Ghosty McPirate wants yer booty doubloons! There's a cursed idol to collect in the woods! Control the shrines and activate the statue to turn yourself into a beastly man-dragon!The Haunted Mines proves the most consistently fun, seeing players abandon the main map entirely to re-murder zombies and collect as many skulls as they can. Both teams then summon giant bone golems that slowly stomp across the map laying waste to structures along the way. More skulls means a much more powerful golem, and the finite number of skulls to collect makes sweeping the mines feel tense and thrilling - should you run the risk of splitting up to collect as many skulls as possible, or stick together as a group and wipe out the enemy team while they scavenge?If you get killed before delivering your gold doubloons to Blackheart, you'll drop them on the floor for anyone to grab.

Conversely the Cursed Hollow map proves far more frustrating and inflexible. Cursed tributes spawn one at a time in specific map locations, requiring both teams to drop everything and do their best to contest it. Encouraging regular team-fights is cool, but also requires a level of teamwork that's incredibly difficult to nurture with strangers. Loose objectives like collecting skulls works, but laser-focused stuff like this proves frustrating if one player on your team doesn't understand their importance.The importance of objectives can't be understated, either - I've yet to play a game that hasn't been comprehensively decided by the outcome of these map-specific challenges. Pay the pirate enough money in Blackheart's Bay and he'll eventually destroy their base with cannons without your team even having to get anywhere near it.Even if the initial batch are a bit hit and miss, there's amazing scope for keeping things fresh. Currently the maps are all based on World of Warcraft, but the wibbly-wobbly nature of the Nexus means they can do whatever they please. Rock N' Roll Racing please, chaps.The other advantage of focusing on maps instead of characters is that the extremities you'd usually see there can all be smoothed out. Team composition is less fragile and fickle, which means players can just pick their favourite hero. When you've coughed up six quid for it, that's super important. They've also sidestepped the hell that unfolds when two League of Legends players want to be the same hero by asking you to pick which character you want before you start searching for a game.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...ting-the-wheel

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Bohemia rules out consoles for Arma 3

March 25th, 2014, 00:20 Posted By: wraggster

Czech developer Bohemia does have PS4 and Xbox One dev kits, but Arma 3 won't be adapted for them."We've basically dismissed it for Arma 3," project leader Joris-Jan van t' Land told me."I personally really like consoles so I would love to see it on there, but for Arma 3, from the start it was developed as PC only, and it wouldn't do it justice - there wouldn't be an easy port to console. You'd really have to redesign stuff like how the controls work, and the interface, so for Arma 3 that's out of the scope. For something that is next, it is becoming much more likely to be multiplatform."The team apparently tried to port Arma 2 to Xbox 360, but, van t' Land told me, "we couldn't get it right".For the next two years, the 50-70 person Arma 3 team will focus on, simply, Arma 3."Arma 3 we are supporting at least for the next two years," declared van t' Land. "We have the plans in place for that. Whatever is next [ie Arma 4], I don't think a lot will happen this year in terms of pre-production. But 2015 will be the year when we need to start thinking about what's next. We don't have concrete plans at the moment."I think it will be something in the franchise [the next game], but we're not sure what. And the company is growing, as you've seen - many new offices - so there are more resources as well to handle multiple [things]."Arma 3 has only just received its final piece of story content, having been launched as an early access game - a military sandbox - in the autumn last year. It's complete now, more or less, and the next update will be a mechanical one, adding an ambitious Zeus mode that furnishes the community with Dungeons & Dragons-style Dungeon Master tools.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...les-for-arma-3

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Diablo 3: Reaper of Souls' launch "will be fine"

March 25th, 2014, 00:19 Posted By: wraggster

Diablo 3's first expansion, Reaper of Souls, launches at midnight tonight - in fact, if you're in the UK, a bit earlier at 11pm GMT - and the mood among players is upbeat. A month ago, Blizzard released the 2.0.1 patch which introduced many of the base changes of the expansion; it's been well received, while last week the decidedly less popular auction house for trading items was turned off.But some are still wary that, come tomorrow, they may not be able to play the game at all. Diablo 3 is an always online game and its launch in May 2012 was marked by stellar sales and disastrous service, as the famous Error 37 denied many players access. Is there a chance that the influx of players brought by the expansion will cause history to repeat?"I think it'll be fine," lead producer Alex Mayberry told me in a London hotel today, sounding confident. The reason for his confidence? That patch, which means that players have effectively been playing the expansion, and Blizzard testing its performance, for four weeks now."When 2.0.1 went live a couple of weeks ago, that was the same codebase as Reaper. I mean, it is Reaper with Act 5, Crusader and Adventure Mode turned off," Mayberry explained. "Come tonight when it's time to launch, we just turn those things on." It will even be possible for players to log in before their local launch time tonight and play the game as normal; the expansion features will become available in-game at the allotted time without them having to log out or patch."We planned it out this way," said Mayberry. "We planned to give ourselves a good month of time where we could get the code out, get people on and resolve issues. The worst part is going live and having all these issues and having to resolve them while players are upset. It's much easier to do this pre-patch and then have the time to react to the things we saw, especially on the server side."Everything's looking really good for tonight... Volume of people plus new code usually equals problems, so we've got the code out, we believe the infrastructure's in place - I don't anticipate that degree of problems that we had at the initial launch. I think it's going to be fun."

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...h-will-be-fine

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Bear Simulator will make your dreams come true

March 25th, 2014, 00:15 Posted By: wraggster

I'm calling it now: 2014 is the year of the animal simulator. First we had Catlateral Damage, followed by Goat Simulator, and now Portlander John Farjay is following suit with Bear Simulator, an already successful Kickstarter venture.The upcoming mammal simulation has already smashed through its $29,500 goal with a current tally of $40K in less than a week. It's still got 24 days to go before its 17th April deadline too."It's like a mini Skyrim but you're a bear," explained Farjay on its Kickstarter page. You'll run around in first-person foraging for food, hunting prey, snoozing in your habitat, and scavenging for secrets. Like bears do.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...eams-come-true

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Steam top ten sellers chart: March 16-22

March 23rd, 2014, 23:28 Posted By: wraggster

DayZ is back on top of this week's best sellers chart on Steam.
The early access hit beat out Payday 2 (on discount) and previous winner South Park: The Stick of Truth in sales over the past seven days.
Bioshock Infinite also reemerged in seventh, thanks to a 75 per cent discount promotion.
Beyond that, there wasn't much difference from the week prior. Rust finished fifth, right ahead of Dark Souls II. Banished slipped to eighth, while Planet Explorers and Wargame: Red Dragon maintained their seats from last week – finishing ninth and then respectively.

1. DayZ
2. Payday 2
3. South Park: The Stick of Truth
4. Counter-Strike: Global Offensive
5. Rust
6. Dark Souls II
7. BioShock Infinite
8. Banished
9. Planet Explorers
10. Wargame: Red Dragon

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Final Fantasy XIV Failed Due To Overly Detailed Flowerpots

March 23rd, 2014, 23:18 Posted By: wraggster

You might not remember Final Fantasy XIV, the Square Enix MMORPG that flopped so badly that Square Enix fired the original developers. But Square Enix certainly does, and at a recent GDC panel, producer Naoki Yoshida explained his views on what caused its failure. One reason? The focus on graphical quality over game play, leading to flower pots that required the same rendering power as player characters, but without the same focus on making the game fun to play. Along with severe server instability and a world made up of maze-like maps, he also cited the game being stuck in past, trying to stick with a formula that worked with Square Enix's first MMO, Final Fantasy XI, without looking at newer MMOs to see what had worked there

http://games.slashdot.org/story/14/0...led-flowerpots

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Twitch Plays Pokemon continues, 30k tune in for start of Emerald

March 23rd, 2014, 23:10 Posted By: wraggster

After more than a month of combined playtime and a bajillion-and-one viewsbetween Pokemon Red and Pokemon Crystal, the Twitch Plays Pokemoncommunity has moved on to Pokemon Emerald. Approximately 30,000 poke-trainers showed up for the start of the Hoenn region adventure, which has the added feature of a display that shows the party's current pokemon. It's okay everyone, we don't need to press start to see who's in the party now and listen to Bulbasaur's cry for 15 minutes!

The first TPP playthrough brought us gods and religions, the second gave us a battle against those same deified creatures. The third playthrough's running meme thus far seems to be that the player character, a female avatar named "A" (short for "Anarchy"), is a psychopathic murderer. Because sure, why not.

http://www.joystiq.com/2014/03/22/tw...rt-of-emerald/

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Dungeon of the Endless adding four-player co-op, visual log

March 23rd, 2014, 22:57 Posted By: wraggster

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Zombies Monsters Robots revealed, spiritual successor to Mercenary Ops

March 23rd, 2014, 22:56 Posted By: wraggster

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Endless Legend enters Early Access next month

March 23rd, 2014, 22:54 Posted By: wraggster

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Microsoft is renewing its PC gaming focus, exploring VR and open to feedback

March 22nd, 2014, 23:57 Posted By: wraggster

Microsoft Studios head Phil Spencer.

Microsoft will soon renew its focus on PC gaming, is looking into virtual reality and continuing to assess concerns over ID@Xbox’s launch parity clause, said Phil Spencer at GDC this morning.Speaking as part of a wide-ranging ‘Fireside chat’ session hosted by Gamasutra editor in chief Kris Graft, the Microsoft Studios boss was also quizzed on a range of other topics, including the Xbox One policy reversals of the last year and the recent departure of Marc Whitten, who left Microsoft for Sonos earlier this week. Spencer said that Whitten’s departure was “for family reasons as well as some professional reasons – he wanted to do something else.” He joked later: “I better get some free speakers.”During a discussion of Xbox One’s storied launch, Spencer argued that the last year hadn’t been as difficult as some might imagine. “The launch actually was great,” he said. “I went through the launch of the 360 so if you think about where our hardware is and where our software is – and frankly game line-up as well – I think it’s a great time to be an Xbox customer. A launch is never without its trials and tribulations but getting there with the number of consoles we had and all of them working was a great accomplishment.”Recalling the reaction to the Xbox One’s reveal event last May, Spencer said that Microsoft’s focus on the console’s wider entertainment capabilities was entirely deliberate – if a little misguided. “We did that knowing that we wanted to focus at E3 100 per cent on the games we were building,” he explained. “In hindsight, in how we rolled out and introduced our product, we could have been more clear and concise about what the soul of the product was. I took a lot of the learnings myself about how consumers heard us, both what we were saying with the policies we had in our minds and how we said it. There were things we had to listen to.”

http://www.edge-online.com/news/micr...-phil-spencer/

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AMD Develops New Linux Open-Source Driver Model

March 22nd, 2014, 23:50 Posted By: wraggster

AMD privately shared with Phoronix during GDC2014 that they're developing a new Linux driver model. While there will still be an open (Gallium3D) and closed-source (Catalyst) driver, the Catalyst driver will be much smaller. AMD developers are trying to isolate the closed-source portion of the driver to just user-space while the kernel driver that's in the mainline Linux kernel would also be used by Catalyst. It's not clear if this will ultimately work but they hope it will for reducing code duplication, eliminating fragmentation with different kernels, and allowing open and closed-source driver developers to better collaborate over the AMD Radeon Linux kernel driver."

http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/1...e-driver-model

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Allons-y! The TARDIS has landed on Steam

March 22nd, 2014, 23:37 Posted By: wraggster

Allons-y! The TARDIS has landed on Steam, bringing with it the Doctor and his faithful companion, Amy Pond. BBC's Doctor Who: The Adventure Games arenow available through Valve's digital distribution service for the Earthly sum of $19.99. These episodic games follow Matt Smith's version of the character through five stories, including "City of the Daleks," "Blood of the Cybermen," and "Shadows of the Vashta Nerada."

Of course, if you live in the UK, this is all moot. You can thwart interstellar villains and save the universe with a sassy sidekick for free.

Also yes, we know we combined a reference to Tennant's Doctor with information about Smith's in the opening, there. But don't worry, that seeming disconnect will be retconned faster than you can say "timey-wimey, wibbly-wobbly."

http://www.joystiq.com/2014/03/22/do...exterminate-y/

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